7 - Two Sieges: Minorca and Gibraltar, 1763–1783

Summary

The return of Minorca to British control in 1763 restored the geopolitical position of Britain in the Mediterranean only superficially. The wide British triumph in the Seven Years’ War stimulated further dislike among its European rivals. Both France and Spain busily developed their navies during the subsequent peace with the clear intention of seeking revenge for defeat, the Dutch retreated even more determinedly into neutrality, and other states – Prussia, Russia, Denmark, Sweden, Austria – were deeply disturbed by the new power which Britain now appeared to wield.

They did not really need to worry, for that power was as fragile as that of any other suddenly prominent state. The military triumph in North America was followed by an assault on long-cherished local autonomies in the British colonies. The dispute began as soon as the war ended with quarrels over taxes on sugar and molasses, and developed through disputes and arguments into riots and overt threats, aggressiveness on both sides and eventually into fighting, beginning at Boston in 1775. The newly expanded British Empire was thus shown to be as hollow as any other – indeed more so than most - and this provided the opportunity for Britain's European enemies to bring down the sudden giant.

The approach to a wider conflict was, as usual, slow and indirect. The fighting in North America – the American Rebellion, or the War of Independence – had been going on for three years before the French made a decisive move into belligerency, though clandestine and not so clandestine help had gone to the American rebels from the start, both officially and privately. That is to say, the war crept up on its future participants in irregular, incremental stages, with neutrality cloaking careful moves to achieve an early advantage. French ships were at sea, cruising to protect American shipping for a year before France went to formal war. It was therefore no surprise to the British government when formal war finally began in February 1778. As France became increasingly hostile between 1775 and 1778 the usual precautions had to be taken – line-of-battle ship squadrons in the Channel, blockades, reinforcements sent to the Mediterranean.